


Distasteful Symmetry

by shadowshrike



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Academy Era, Drabble, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowshrike/pseuds/shadowshrike
Summary: When Claude and Sylvain first meet, they are everything the other hates - a man who has all the love in the world but turns his back on it, and a carefree brat who has never known any hardship for his crest. Understanding is hard to find behind a mask.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





	1. First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deadlifts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlifts/gifts).



> For those who follow my twitter, you probably already saw these posted as drabbles a while back. The second chapter was a gift for the amazing deadlifts, who won my author support raffle. They write some amazing fics - I highly recommend you check out their works!
> 
> It's possible I will write more drabbles for this in the future, but I have no plans to continue this as a series right now since I have so many other projects going on.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Claude drawled, waltzing into the library far too late for respectable students.

Actually, by those standards, it wasn’t so surprising to see Sylvain skulking about the place. Claude had heard him sneaking past his door at profane hours of the night more often than not. What  _ was _ surprising, however, was that Sylvain appeared to be reading instead of trying to pork some easily-suckered woman against the stacks.

The redhead looked up from his book. For a split second, Claude felt like an intruder in a lion’s den two seconds from being mauled, but then the spite in his eyes vanished and Sylvain’s easy smile was firmly in place.

That fake grin was only marginally more welcoming, but Claude had faced a lot worse than a spoiled brat pissing away his life because he hadn’t learned to deal with disappointment. He smiled back.

“Oh, hey there, Claude. What are you doing up so late? I figured you respectable, house-leader types would all be sound asleep by now.” Sylvain winked at him, surreptitiously closing whatever he’d been reading.

Claude’s smile pulled wider. “Me? Respectable? You must mean his Princeliness. And here I thought you were always sneaking around at night because the guy refuses to get some shut-eye.”

“What brings you here, anyway?” Sylvain asked, keeping a hand over his book. It was such a smooth transition, Claude almost believed the guy wasn’t trying to avoid talking about Dimitri. “Doing more crest research?”

Had Claude been less experienced in dealing with people probing for weaknesses, he might have frozen at the question. No one was supposed to know about that. Instead, he did the opposite, sauntering over to plop at the same desk as Sylvain, trying to decide how much the Kingdom knight knew and how much was a guess to get Claude to reveal his hand.

Better to play dumb for now.

“I think you’re mistaking me for Lysithea,” he deflected with a laugh.

Sylvain shugged. “I just figured that you didn’t even know about your crest until recently, so you must have questions. It’s unusual for an heir to pop up like you did.”

There was something bitter beneath the words that felt more dangerous than any of Lorenz’s scathing lectures about his behavior. Claude hadn’t lived this long without trusting his gut. 

Neither of their smiles wavered, but the archer’s hand dropped to his lap, close to his ever-present dagger before answering. “Yeah, I’m one-of-a-kind aren’t I?”

“Oh, you’re definitely something else with that crest.” The light in Sylvain’s eyes died like a candle snuffed by a stray breeze. “Not everyone is so lucky.”

“True, true. Gotta make the most of the hand we’ve been dealt. I’d way we’re quite the lucky pair.” Claude’s teeth glinted like fangs in the dim light of the library. Whatever Sylvain was getting at, he wasn’t about to be lectured by a guy who had literally everything he could ever want - power, friends, popularity, fortune - and turned his back on it.

“We’re a lucky pair, huh? I don’t think you appreciate just how good you have it. Maybe I should take care of that.”

Silence stuffed the air for a tense moment. Claude’s knuckles bled white around his dagger, and Sylvain stared at him with dead-eyed disgust that felt familiar and terrifyingly foreign at the same time.

Then the redhead laughed, and the pressure shattered.

“I’m just messing with you. Gotta keep the other houses on their toes, right? You should have seen the look on your face!” Sylvain cackled, throwing his hands behind his head and rocking back on his heels. “In any case, I really gotta be going. It was good seeing you, Claude! Don’t stay up too late.”

Trying to keep up with the sudden shift in mood, the house leader cocked an eyebrow. “And here I thought you’d want me to stay up. Give you an advantage when I’m half-asleep tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that’s only a good strategy until Dimitri finds out you’ve been pulling overtime. It’d only be a matter of time before he made us do the same thing to keep up with the Deer, and I’d rather not work any harder than I have to, thanks,” Sylvain replied in a surprisingly good imitation of Hilda, as though he wasn’t already here nearly as late as Claude. He tossed out a wave as he slid his book off the table. “See ya later!”

“Later!” Claude called out at his retreating back, matching their levels of false cheer.

What an unexpected and altogether unpleasant encounter. Another Blue Lion mystery to unravel. It seemed like he’d have to start doing some snooping into the other houses sooner rather than later.


	2. A Willing Ear

Another brother problem. 

The Blue Lions couldn’t stop stumbling into them. First, the whole deal with Felix’s brother, whose name alone could cause the house to explode more violently than one of Claude’s failed smoke bombs. Then the concerning matter of the Western Church which started with Ashe’s adoptive brother, destroyed his family, and turned an entire region into heretics that the knights would have to suppress. Now it was Sylvain’s brother, stealing a Relic from the house which had exiled him to terrorize the Faerghus countryside.

If Claude believed in that kind of thing, he’d say the Goddess had forsaken her “Holy Kingdom”. No wonder the lot of them were such a mess.

Or at least, that was what Claude assumed. Sylvain was hard to unravel at the best of times, and this nightmare with Miklan had only revealed more of whatever rotten thing was at his core that had been slathered in gold paint to make him palatable to the world instead of repaired. Siblings weren’t something Claude really understood, being an only child himself, but he was pretty sure most people didn’t laugh when they were told they might have to kill their brother. Then again, he also didn’t expect a father to let their sons fight to the death over a family heirloom without even bothering to show up for the sport of it if nothing else.

It was as much worry as curiosity that made him go searching for Sylvain. He hadn’t come back that night. Not even well after Lorenz and Felix had turned in and even the prince retired to his room, pretending he’d been sleeping since Lonato’s death.

The thing was, Sylvain wasn’t in any of his usual haunts when he went out at this hour. 

Not meandering around town, probably having drunk something that would get him expelled if Seteth ever got wind of it. Not wandering in the gardens, hoping to catch a lonely lady who could use a gentleman with a crest to lead her back to her room and give her a night that she’d never forget and he’d never remember. Not even haunting the library, putting his deceptive intelligence to use where no one would ever realize he knew more about Faerghus politics than anyone, even the man who would become his king.

Claude had almost given up entirely when the hairs prickling along his spine alerted him to an intruder as he sauntered through the stables. Instincts screaming, Claude slipped into the shadow of the first stall. He gripped his dagger and listened.

“Why won’t that bastard just stay away?” a voice hissed inside, where a horse should have been sleeping. 

Claude grit his teeth. He knew where that question led and wondered if whoever was talking about him knew he was still there. 

The young man inside continued, “I thought it was finally over. But he couldn’t let go of tormenting me, huh?” A bitter laugh. “I should have known he wouldn’t be happy until I was dead. And you know the worst part? Even now he can’t get dad’s attention. Even now he’ll…” The voice stalled and coughed to clear its quaking. “What do I care if Miklan blames me for this, too? I’ve never been anything but a curse since I was born, as far as he cared. It’s good that we’re finally ending this. One of us was always going to have to die. If I beat him to it, that’s just...how it has to be.”

At the same moment Claude realized this person wasn’t talking about him at all, he also realized that he had an impossible choice in front of him. Walk away, deliberately leaving a fellow student that he’d never cared for but was as human as anyone else to suffer alone. Or step out of the shadows and face some personal trauma neither of them was prepared to talk about.

Claude barely contained an audible groan as he stood up and turned the corner.

Sylvain gasped, scrambling somewhere in the dark as he hurried to get to his feet, too. By the time he sauntered into the light, his smile was back on, but there was no hiding his uncharacteristically rumpled uniform or a head of unruly hair that said ‘I haven’t had the energy to brush my hair for a week’ rather than ‘I just had the most amazing sex and I’d love to do it again with you’. 

He laughed like a door someone had forgotten to oil. “Hey, Claude. Wasn’t expecting to see you out here at this hour. Still sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”

“I’m not here to ask if you’re doing okay if that’s what you’re worried about.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. Sure, that was part of the reason he started searching originally, but he’d already gotten that answer. Sylvain was undoubtedly not okay.

The guard of Sylvain’s smile cracked. “Heh, well thanks for that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know how tiring it gets to have to keep lying to everyone all the time.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re an expert at it.” Sylvain chuckled in a way that made Claude’s hands want to ball into fists. “Hey, it’s not like I’m not any different. I’ve lied so much to everyone, I’m not sure I remember how to tell the truth anymore.”

Claude laughed back, lacking his usual luster. “I doubt that. Why else would you be here?”

“What?” There was that dead-eyed stare Sylvain usually reserved for the heat of battle. Claude had been wondering how long it would take to tease out.

The archer shrugged. “Between you and me, I’ve always thought horses were great listeners. Wyverns, too.”

A beat of uncomfortable silence passed between them. 

“Yeah...” Sylvain tossed his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling like it had the answer to all his problems. “They’ve never let me down. Never judged me or expected anything from me that I couldn’t give. They don’t care about crests or birthrights or inheritance.” He chuckled again. “I think I always kind of wished they were my real family. Man, that’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so.” Claude chewed on his lip, grateful Sylvain was still looking away. “Everyone wants a place where they feel accepted.”

Gautier’s heir did look at him then, a curious glint in his eye. He stared and Claude stared back with a smile he knew would give nothing away.

Or at least, it never had before. 

“Thanks, Claude. You know you aren’t nearly as much of a jerk as I thought you were,” Sylvain said at last.

Claude grinned wider. “Likewise. In fact, you’re almost tolerable when you’re not pretending to be an idiot.”

“In any case, I should get some sleep.” Sylvain faked a yawn. “My brother isn’t going to give up that relic without a fight, and Dimitri’ll have my head if he figures out I’ve been slacking again. With Ingrid and Rodrigue around, I might even get the ‘you’re acting like a disgrace to your name’ lecture in triplicate.”

That was a lie and they both knew it. Dimitri had offered to let Sylvain stay behind more than once, saying House Blaiddyd and Fraldarius would be more than enough to handle this mission, so he wouldn’t have to face his brother. Still, Claude wouldn’t begrudge a miserable man his graceful exit.

“I’m headed back, too. I could walk you if you’re up for it,” he said.

“You sure you wanna do that? Who knows what rumors will start if anyone spots a good-for-nothing like me with the future Duke Riegan.” Sylvain winked at him as they started their trek back to the dormitory, side-by-side.

Claude hummed, tilting his head back to stare at the sky. “What fun is life if people aren’t talking?”


End file.
